The rapid development of mobile construction cranes has resulted in the production of cranes having a lifting capacity of as much as 125 tons or more. Such cranes are necessarily quite massive and their total weight without loading exceeds the allowable vehicular weight on highways of certain jurisdictions. As a result of this, it has become desirable to distribute the total weight of the mobile crane on two separate vehicles for highway transport. The prior art has recognized the above problem in at least a broad sense, and one prior art teaching is contained in U.S. Pat. No. 3,302,806, issued to Brown et al. on Feb. 7, 1967.
The present invention is concerned primarily with an apparatus and a method for transferring the complete telescopically extensible boom assembly of a hydraulic construction crane from the customary motorized crane carrier vehicle to a separate and independent boom assembly transport vehicle having a suitable support carriage and anchoring means for the boom assembly during its subsequent travel on a highway. When the massive boom assembly is supported on the independent transport vehicle, such as a flat bed trailer, and the remainder of the crane structure is carried by the regular carrier vehicle, the weight of both vehicles will be well within prevailing highway regulations.